Having potted plants and hanging plants in homes, offices, stores and commercial environments has become a prevalent practice for aesthetic, decorative purposes, oxygen generation and for the beneficial psychological effects many people experience in the presence of such plants. The beneficial effects of potted and hanging plants have given rise to businesses which provide plant maintenance services for tending, rotating and replacing such plants.
A plant used for such purposes is typically grown in a suitable potting soil retained within an inexpensive inner container such as a plastic pot or metal can for easy portability. To insure proper aesthetics, the inner container is typically positioned within a decorative container permanently maintained or hung in a desired location within the building. With regard to potted plants, so as to conceal the inner container within the decorative container, and camouflage the potting soil about the base of the plant, a material such as Spanish moss or sphagnum moss is manually spread and positioned to extend throughout the interior of the decorative container. Rotating plants between offices or replacing a plant, therefore, involves manually removing the moss, removing the inner container from the decorative container and manually replacing and spreading the moss. This procedure, which is time consuming in itself, usually causes some moss to fall onto the floor adjacent the decorative pot. The floor must subsequently be cleaned, thereby requiring additional personal time and reducing the efficiency of the plant maintenance service.
With regard to hanging plant baskets, generally these baskets are configured such that they must be lined with a decorative material so as to enhance the aesthetic value of the basket as well as aid in maintaining a quantity of soil therein. Conventionally known methods for lining such baskets basically involve manually lumping quantities of decorative material along the interior surfaces of the basket and placing a quantity of soil therein. As can be appreciated, this process often proves to be both messy and time consuming. Moreover, after using this lining technique, often times additional material must be stuffed into exterior portions of the basket when areas of the interior lining are discovered to be of insufficient thickness to maintain the soil within the basket. Thus, there exists a need in the art for a decorative, prefabricated hanging plant basket liner which is cost effective, easy to install, and adequately maintains soil within the basket.